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Showing papers in "Cultural Sociology in 2009"


Journal ArticleDOI
John Law1
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore a performative understanding of social science method and consider the plausibility of the claim that research methods generate not only representations of reality, but also the realities those representations depict.
Abstract: This article explores a performative understanding of social science method. First, it draws on STS to consider the plausibility of the claim that research methods generate not only representations of reality, but also the realities those representations depict. Second, it undertakes an archaeology of a major survey — a Eurobarometer investigation of European citizens' attitudes to farm animal welfare — in order to explore the character of its performativity. Finally, it considers some of the implications of the performativity of research tools for the future of methods in social science.

313 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper conducted a historical sociological analysis of the appeal of epochalist modes of social thought, especially as manifested in contemporary British sociology, and laid out key features of these modes of thought.
Abstract: The article conducts a historical sociological analysis of the appeal of epochalist modes of social thought, especially as manifested in contemporary British sociology. It lays out key features of ...

96 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors discusses the use of material generated in a mixed method investigation into cultural tastes and practices, conducted in Britain from 2003 to 2006, which employed a survey, focus groups and household interviews.
Abstract: This article discusses the use of material generated in a mixed method investigation into cultural tastes and practices, conducted in Britain from 2003 to 2006, which employed a survey, focus groups and household interviews. The study analysed the patterning of cultural life across a number of fields, enhancing the empirical and methodological template provided by Bourdieu's Distinction. Here we discuss criticisms of Bourdieu emerging from subsequent studies of class, culture and taste, outline the arguments related to the use of mixed methods and present illustrative results from the analysis of these different types of data.We discuss how the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods informed our analysis of cultural life in contemporary Britain. No single method was able to shed light on all aspects of our inquiry, lending support to the view that mixing methods is the most productive strategy for the investigation of complex social phenomena.

49 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition has been a visible and controversial part of the classical music world for over a century, yet sociologists have strangely neglected to study their social signif- icance as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Competitions have been a visible and controversial part of the classical music world for over a century, yet sociologists have strangely neglected to study their social signif- icance. This article explores the competition's ongoing contest for legitimacy by consid- ering the case of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Through a discourse analysis of publicity materials and media coverage, I reconstruct the symbolic frame- works that guide the construction of the event and the interpretation of competitors' performances. I also trace the critical challenge to the idealized representations of the event, and decode the gender ideologies implied in commonly used metaphors. Demonstrating the centrality of meaning in musical production and reception, I aim to expose the limitations of the production perspective and Bourdieu's model of the artis- tic field, offering in their place a new approach based on social performance.

47 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that globalization does not herald an era of unprecedented personal freedom, a belated modernity, nor does it signify a crisis of the ''traditional'' Indian family, drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in India.
Abstract: This article explores how globalization is shaping the aspirations and identities of the Indian middle class and in particular those employed by the outsourcing industry. While these aspirations do not have a clearly defined object, they cluster around an idea of the West as the locus of modernity.The West's mystique derives, no doubt as it did in the colonial period, from the fact that it is the author of dramatic change. But this also prompts a certain anxiety among the middle class that such change is somehow corrupting. Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in India, I argue that globalization does not herald an era of unprecedented personal freedom, a belated modernity, nor does it signify a crisis of the `traditional' Indian family. It is an Indian morality play where the pleasure principle clashes with the demands of custom and obligation, where kama (pleasure) and dharma (duty) meet in uneasy suspension.

39 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Caroline Gray1
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the study of disability would be thoroughly enriched if the insights offered by cultural sociology as well as recent work on civil society were applied to it, and illustrate this point by offering my own interpretation of contrasting discourses of disability and their relationship to major narrative frameworks of disability.
Abstract: In this article, I argue that the study of disability would be thoroughly enriched if the insights offered by cultural sociology as well as recent work on civil society were applied to it. I illustrate this point by offering my own interpretation of contrasting discourses of disability and their relationship to major narrative frameworks of disability. I describe how these narrative frameworks are dependent on a symbolic code that distinguishes between the abilities and inabilities of the physical body.

38 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper studied the Chicago Dyke March and found that the broad ideological commitment to inclusion conflicted with organizers' narrower collective identity, which formed around and celebrated a specific type of movement participant, and thus undermined their mobilization efforts.
Abstract: Drawing on an ethnographic study of the Chicago Dyke March, this article focuses on an instance in which a movement's ideology and identity contradict in order to advance, the theoretical question of how culture `works'. In forming as a reaction to perceived exclusions by the national and annual Gay Pride parades, Dyke March organizers developed an ideological commitment to inclusion.This ideology affected the March in three key areas: constructing an organizing structure, establishing recruitment and outreach procedures, and engaging in framing processes. However, the Dyke March's broad ideological commitment to inclusion conflicted with organizers' narrower collective identity, which formed around and celebrated a specific type of movement participant, and thus undermined their mobilization efforts. This study suggests that organizational dilemmas can arise for movements when their culture has internally contradictory elements. It introduces new theoretical perspectives about the conditions under which ...

36 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the relationship between housing and the position of individuals in social space mapped out by means of a multiple correspondence analysis, and show that personal resources and the imagination of home are linked to levels of cultural capital.
Abstract: The article discusses the significance of cultural capital for the understanding of the field of housing in contemporary Britain. It explores the relationship between housing and the position of individuals in social space mapped out by means of a multiple correspondence analysis. It considers the material aspects of housing and the changing contexts that are linked to the creation and display of desire for social position and distinction expressed in talk about home decoration as personal expression and individuals' ideas of a `dream house'. It is based on an empirical investigation of taste and lifestyle using nationally representative survey data and qualitative interviews. The article shows both that personal resources and the imagination of home are linked to levels of cultural capital, and that rich methods of investigation are required to grasp the significance of these normally invisible assets to broaden the academic understanding of the field of housing in contemporary culture.

24 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Brian Conway1
TL;DR: The authors argued that there is room for improvement in these models by specifying the conditions under which a controversial past can be remembered initially in a fragmented way and, with greater temporal distance from the original event, can evolve into a more consensual form of commemoration in which the past is seized upon as a resource to advance the politics of reconciliation between two opposing identity groups in an unsettled society.
Abstract: The sociological literature on collective memory puts forward fragmented and multivocal commemorations as two dominant ways of responding to difficult pasts. This article argues that there is room for improvement in these models by specifying the conditions under which a controversial past can be remembered initially in a fragmented way and, with greater temporal distance from the original event, can evolve into a more consensual form of commemoration in which the past is seized upon as a resource to advance the politics of reconciliation between two opposing identity groups in an unsettled society. An evolving political climate, active memory choreography, and the usability of the past in the present all help account for this. The empirical evidence to support this theoretical claim comes from a long-range, historical study of the case of Bloody Sunday (1972).

23 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the ways in which contemporary digital visualization technologies offer grounds for a reappraisal of the relationship between qualitative and quantitative data, using the exampledge method.
Abstract: This article explores the ways in which contemporary digital visualization technologies offer grounds for a reappraisal of the relationship between qualitative and quantitative data. Using the exam...

15 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors empirically examined the persuasiveness of narratives through the lens of recent controversies over same-sex marriage and found that narrative appeals along with non-narrative appeals that directly challenge ideas of samesex marriage as inherently a religious issue are most likely to induce greater favourability toward same-same marriage.
Abstract: Is telling stories politically effective? Recent debates around the efficacy of storytelling have challenged the view that narratives are an effective means of political persuasion. This article empirically examines the persuasiveness of narratives through the lens of recent controversies over same-sex marriage. Through a survey-experiment, I test the effects of different kinds of arguments on heterosexuals' views on same-sex marriage. I find some support for long-standing claims of the efficacy of stories; however, stories are not always effective, and their perceived efficacy outstrips their actual efficacy.The findings suggest that narrative appeals along with non-narrative appeals that directly challenge ideas of same-sex marriage as inherently a religious issue are most likely to induce greater favourability toward same-sex marriage.The results help specify the types of issues for which narrative appeals might be expected to be effective, ineffective, or counterproductive, and further illuminate cult...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore some reasons that may help to explain the extremely negative attitude of the media and the overwhelming majority of the Russian population to drugs and drug users, arguing that such an attitude cannot be explained in rational terms of the negative consequences for the health and security of members of society.
Abstract: This article is devoted to analysis of the ‘media drug wave’ that occurred in Russia at the end of the 1990s. Following a general description of the coverage of the drug problem by the Russian press, the article sets out to explore some reasons that may help to explain the extremely negative attitude of the media and the overwhelming majority of the Russian population to drugs and drug users. Drawing on the cultural theory of risk, it is argued that such an attitude cannot be explained in rational terms of the negative consequences for the health and security of members of society; rather, drugs and drug users are perceived to be symbolic polluters of society. Cultural codes of purity and pollution can help clarify several key themes that inform political and public debates around drugs in Russia. The social context (rise of ‘Russian neomoralism’) in which the drug problem was constructed is outlined.

Journal ArticleDOI
Tony Bennett1
TL;DR: Moretti's use of statistics and techniques for visualizing the action of literary forms, and assesses their implications for the development of cultural sociology is discussed in this paper, where the authors compare their work with the work of Pierre Bourdieu.
Abstract: This paper reviews Franco Moretti's use of statistics and techniques for visualizing the action of literary forms, and assesses their implications for the development of cultural sociology. It compares Moretti's use of such methods with the work of Pierre Bourdieu, contrasting the principles of sociological analysis developed by Bourdieu with Moretti's preoccupation with the analysis of literary form as illustrated by his accounts of the development of the English novel and the role of clues in the organization of detective stories. His attempt to use evolutionary principles of explanation to account for the development of literary forms is probed by considering its similarities to earlier evolutionary accounts of the development of design traits. While welcoming the methodological challenge posed by Moretti's work, its lack of an adequate account of the role of literary institutions is criticized, as are the effects of the forms of abstraction that his analyses rest upon.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors of as discussed by the authors presented at the conference "Narrative, numbers and social change" at the University of Manchester, UK in November 2007, which was organized through the Economic and Social Research Council funded Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC).
Abstract: This article introduces the symposium issue on `Narrative, Numbers and Socio-Cultural Change'.The articles were all papers presented initially at the conference `Narrative, Numbers and Social Change' at the University of Manchester, UK in November 2007.The conference was organized through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC). Methodological issues have been central to CRESC since its inception, and the Centre has an ongoing commitment to nurturing methodological expertise and innovation in the study of socio-cultural change. This particular event marked an interest in rethinking the boundaries of qualitative and quantitative research and in developing methods adequate to the challenges posed by socio-cultural complexity, in ways which involve reworking some of the conventional understandings of the relationships between the empirical, the theoretical and methodology. The introduction reviews the articles and reflects on their significa...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the main arguments made by Bourdieu in his late work On Television and Journalism are applied to the empirical case of the production of discursive visions of Italy and the Italians in Britain from approximately 1840 to the present day.
Abstract: This article takes the main arguments made by Bourdieu in his late work On Television and Journalism and applies them to the empirical case of the production of discursive visions of Italy and the Italians in Britain from approximately 1840 to the present day. In doing so, Bourdieu's field theory is applied in order to examine and compare the range and diversity of the Italian visions produced at around the mid-point of the 19th century — a period of high cultural autonomy in England — with those produced in the present day. In the account of the present day, the dominant assemblage of discursive practices and the fields from which they derive is explicated and the extent to which these visions are shaped by the `audience ratings' mindset is scrutinized.The article concludes by reflecting on the analytical utility of Bourdieu's field theory for understanding inter-cultural representation.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse the painted panels of the moliceiro boat, a traditional working boat of the Ria de Aveiro region of Portugal, examining the power relations it expresses and its ambiguous past and present relationships with the political and the economic powers of the Portuguese state.
Abstract: This article analyses the painted panels of the moliceiro boat, a traditional working boat of the Ria de Aveiro region of Por tugal. The ar ticle examines how the painted panels have been invented and reinvented over time. The boat and its panels are contextualized both within the changing socio-economic conditions of the Ria de Aveiro region, and the changing socio-political conditions of Portugal throughout the 20th century and until the present day. The article historically analyses the social significance of ‘moliceiro culture’, examining in particular the power relations it expresses and its ambiguous past and present relationships with the political and the economic powers of the Portuguese state. The article unpacks some of the complexity of the relations that have pertained between public and private, local and national, folk culture and ‘art’, and popular and institutional in the Ria de Aveiro region in particular, and Portugal more generally.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper explored the narrative of prominent visual artists practising within post-devolution Wales and argued that such positions and narratives form crucial data and resources for re-conceptualizing cultural policy formation and modernization in which the voice of the artist is recognized, acknowledged and heard.
Abstract: This article explores the narrative of prominent visual artists practising within post-devolution Wales. The article adopts a sociological approach and does not seek to engage with perspectives promoted by art history or cultural studies. It utilises exemplar narratives gathered from over 20 in-depth ethnographic interviews with established visual artists working in Wales and explores the manner through which practitioners display various configurations of cultural futures and, at the same time, occupy discursive roles in which the voice of the artist performs visionary and moralizing work in relation to Welsh art-world futures. The article concludes by arguing that such positions and narrative form crucial data and resources for re-conceptualizing cultural policy formation and modernization in which the voice of the artist is recognized, acknowledged and heard.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the cultural valorization of reviews and ratings in the context of computer products and argue that reviews are important in maintaining quality standards, and that the credibility of ratings and reviews should be investigated.
Abstract: computer products is perhaps the most interesting part of this book. As these comments suggest, I have some reservations about this book. Still, they pale in comparison to the overall insights and contributions the book contains. While it may not contain a fully developed sociology of reviews, this book does demonstrate that this is a topic worth further attention. It also identifies most of the important issues that a sociology of reviews would need to address. The general cultural process that the author seeks to describe and understand is one that I term cultural valorization. It has to do with the symbolic value that gets attached to people, places, things, and even events as the result of purely cultural mechanisms. I thought I knew a lot about this process, but the author has convinced me that I have a lot more to learn. As my choice of terms suggests, I feel that Bourdieu provides us with some useful conceptual tools for thinking about this problem. Blank does mention Bourdieu but finds his theories wanting. I suspect that he could glean a few more insights from a more careful reading of Bourdieu, especially his work on fields of cultural production. Blank does raise a lot of intriguing questions. Perhaps the most significant theoretical issue in the entire book has to do with the credibility of various reviews and ratings. Although Blank is unable to elaborate a comprehensive sociology of reviews, he does an admirable job of discussing an astonishing array of activities that might conceivably fall under this rubric. He shows that reviews and ratings permeate almost every aspect of social life. Almost everyone who has done anything even remotely related to reviews and ratings gets mentioned, albeit often only in passing. The author also makes a good case for why reviews are important. However, despite the breadth of empirical and theoretical literature incorporated into this discussion, there are some surprising gaps. For example, the work by sociologists on reviews and ratings clearly intersects with the work by economists on the importance of ‘signals’ in situations of asymmetric information involving ‘experience goods’. Indeed, it can be argued that reviews and ratings are important in maintaining quality standards. Of course, symbolic value is readily converted into economic value. In the final analysis, we invariably pay a premium for eating at a restaurant or buying a computer component that has earned the equivalent of ‘four stars’ from a reviewer we trust.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors make an attempt to reconstruct the whole period of intellectual life spent by Adorno in the USA, building on some previous secondary works (such as Martin Jay's) but mainly on unpublished primary sources here exploited for the first time, including some FBI documents which unexpectedly cast light on Adorno's concern for America as well as his appreciation of its potential role in the development of democracy.
Abstract: methodology to intellectual history, in order to gain a general, albeit inevitably not organic, knowledge of that enterprise. While this is not that comprehensive study of the Radio Research project and its intellectual consequences that we are waiting for, the book by Jenemann is the first general, serious attempt to reconstruct the whole period of intellectual life spent by Adorno in the USA, building on some previous secondary works (such as Martin Jay’s) but mainly on unpublished primary sources here exploited for the first time – including some FBI documents which unexpectedly cast light on Adorno’s concern for America as well as his appreciation of its potential role in the development of democracy. As could be expected, a long chapter of the book is devoted to music, offering a good reconstruction of the same period and of a few of the same texts included in Current of Music (Hullot-Kentor is acknowledged for his suggestions). More interesting at this point are the chapters which cover topics perhaps not so central to Adorno’s intellectual project, like music, but relevant for cultural sociologists, such as cinema. A self-proclaimed ‘study of the collision between German intellectual history, as embodied in Adorno, and the American popular culture he wrote about’ (pp. xiv–xv), Jenemann’s book is a major contribution to our critical knowledge of the American experiences of this very European scholar, highly informative, and capable of conveying the structures of feeling that migration may produce in intellectuals. It is a pity that it displays a few inaccuracies deriving probably from the author’s – a specialist in literature – lack of familiarity with the history and the culture of the social sciences. A reference to someone recognizable as George Herbert Mead is referred to instead as Margaret (p. 10); Adorno is said to encounter the Bureau of Applied Social Research, when the latter was founded by Lazarsfeld on the ashes of the Radio Office only some years after the departure of Adorno; in a footnote Geoffrey Gorer is credited as ‘an extremely influential sociologist’ (p. 201) when he was in fact an anthropologist and a writer. These minor problems apart, the book does its job well and offers even to sociologists an impressive amount of information and above all an understanding of a crucial segment of Adorno’s intellectual trajectory from which his complex, characteristically ambivalent if not contradictory relationships, not only with the social sciences but also with popular culture, can finally emerge in many of their facets.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the extent to which electoral votes were cast for George Bush during the 2004 election, a variable that was specified as the degree of redness, was compared to a scale of moral conduct at the state level.
Abstract: Since 2000, in the USA Republican voting states have been called red and the Democrat ones called blue. We explore whether or not the cultural stereotype that red states harbour more virtuous constituents than blue states has merit. We relate the extent to which electoral votes were cast for George Bush during the 2004 election, a variable that we specify as the degree of redness, to a scale of moral conduct at the state level. This scale is a composite of indicators of socially disapproved behaviours that conservatives in particular are more concerned about than are liberals in the USA. The scale is an equally weighted sum of ranks on 13 aggregated indicators of behaviours. Our scale includes activities that are most strongly advocated and campaigned against by conservatives and covers sexual behaviour, substance abuse, family breakdown, and crime rates. Data are extracted from a variety of sources in 2000. We examine the untested presumption that inhabitants of red states are more moral than those in blue states, as some commonly held stereotypes would lead us to believe. No matter how the analysis is conducted, we reach the same inescapable conclusion. The red state/ blue state dichotomy just does not pan out empirically.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight the effects of historical memory on the Arab-Israeli conflict and demonstrate that both Jews and Arabs employ narratives of distant pasts to construct identities and shape politics.
Abstract: highlight the effects of historical memory on the Arab-Israeli conflict. We demonstrate that both Jews and Arabs employ narratives of distant pasts to construct identities and shape politics. Whether real or imagined, the past filtered through collective memory has had and will continue to have an enormous influence on how Jews and Arabs perceive themselves and others. These perceptions are linked in turn to contemporary patterns of social and political behaviour (p. ix).


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that the real pleasure of the lottery for participants is mental, involving ongoing experiential aspects rather than immediate thrills or excitement of the kind that are commonly found in other forms of gambling.
Abstract: notions of gambling might not apply particularly well to lottery participation for some players. It is in this context that Casey argues that the real pleasure of the lottery for participants is mental, involving ongoing experiential aspects rather than immediate thrills or excitement of the kind that are commonly found in other forms of gambling. The pleasures of this type of game are to be found in dreaming and fantasizing about possible lives and courses of action if one were to win. At the same time, the fact that many players do not really want to win life-changing amounts of money suggests that this realm is also where they want the lottery to stay. Overall, this research shows that lottery gambling is both more mundane and yet at the same time more interesting than previously thought. Casey demonstrates that it is part of everyday life that fits around the patterns and routines of family, friends and work, and enhances sociability, leisure and dreaming. The pleasures of the game appear to be found in the realm of the immaterial, and are gained from imagining wins and talking about jackpots – albeit with a realistic expectation that they are not likely to happen. In some ways, the emphasis on the mundane and routinized elements of lottery play begins to beg the question: what kind of gambling is lottery gambling? At times, it does not seem to be gambling at all, but rather a form of consumption whose benefits are largely to be found in the experiential domain of dreaming, and which also facilitates other, secondary forms of leisure among participants. At one point, Casey states: ‘This book is a “story”, an account of the everyday, classed and gendered lives of the working class women of this sample’ (p. 61). In the best tradition of sociological research, it is exactly that, and it succeeds in telling its story – bringing characters, themes and plot together in an engrossing narrative that deserves a wide readership, in cultural and feminist studies, in sociology, and beyond.